Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States

[673] less touched, when, from time to time, the revolving light upon the grim old Cape—that Cape which had so long divided the Eastern from the Western world—threw its full blaze upon the deck of the struggling ship. Overhead, the sky was perfectly clear, there being not so much as a speck of a cloud to be seen—and this in the midst of a howling gale of wind! At three A. M. we cleared the Cape, and keeping the ship off a few points, gave her the trysails, with the bonnets off. She bounded over the seas like a stag-hound unleashed. I had been up all night, and now went below to snatch some brief repose before the toils of another day should begin.